Point-of-Care Periodontitis Testing: Biomarkers, Current Technologies, and Perspectives

Abstract

Periodontitis has become one of the most universal chronic inflammatory diseases worldwide. Subclinical symptom progression, ultimately leading to permanent damage, calls for early diagnosis and long-term monitoring. However, traditional clinical diagnostic methods are complex and expensive, and cannot meet these requirements. Recently, with more biomarkers and the development of new technologies, various point-of-care testing (POCT) platforms have been developed for periodontitis diagnosis and monitoring. These are easy to perform, rapid, low-cost, and are perfectly suited for high-frequency diagnosis of periodontitis at the point-of-care (POC). We summarize existing biomarkers of different periodontitis stages and recent developed POCT platforms (including lab-on-a-chip, paper-based platforms, and chairside tests), discuss their existing challenges and future potential, and provide some inspiration and guidelines for future POC periodontitis testing.

Keywords: biomarkers; chairside test; lab-on-a-chip device; paper-based test; periodontitis diagnostics; point-of-care testing.